Manufacturers or other organizations may collaborate to produce various standards for devices such as electronic devices. These standards may set forth a wide range of design criteria for a device. The criteria may include physical, mechanical, and/or electrical specifications. In order to conform or comply with a standard, a device typically meets all of the called for physical, mechanical, and/or electrical provisions.
One organization that has been formed to set standards for the electronic storage industry is the Small Form Factor (SFF) Committee. The SFF committee may be found at http://www.sffcommittee.com. One set of standards set forth by the Committee includes standards for small form factor pluggable (SFP) transceivers. These standards include the Small Form Factor Pluggable Transceiver MultiSource Agreement (SFP MSA), the SFF-8074i Specification for SFP (Small Form Factor Pluggable) Transceiver, and the SFF-8472 Specification for Digital Diagnostic Monitoring Interface for Optical Transceivers.
A transceiver manufactured in accordance with these SFP standards includes an EEPROM that is accessible by a host coupled to the transceiver. In particular, the SFP standards specify the type and quantity of information that is to be stored in the EEPROM as well as the way in which a host can access and update information in the EEPROM. Although a transceiver may provide a host with a direct connection to an EEPROM, other design goals and constraints may make such a direct connection undesirable or infeasible. In particular, a direct connection between an EEPROM and a host may become undesirable where a transceiver includes a controller that operates in conjunction with firmware or other software. In such as transceiver, EEPROM accesses by a host may take a much longer time than in transceivers with hardware controllers.
It would be desirable to be able to provide a host with fast EEPROM accesses without a direct connection to the EEPROM.